One More Time With Feeling
by LadyLazarus33
Summary: Beauty was in the eye of beholder. Given the nature of their relationship, it was difficult to offer a perspective that the both of them would deem acceptable given the circumstances.


**I DO NOT OWN HETALIA:AXIS POWERS **

"You should be in bed."

The nineteen year old doesn't turn around from where she stood leaned against the kitchen counter and back to the adult leaning against the wall. France says nothing to her silently resistant behavior but takes his time in watching her fingers rolling the bottle of full of pills back and forth on the granite countertop.

Amelia gives a steady exhale and he takes that as his signal to move, walking the few steps into the area and opening the cupboard slightly above her head to grasp a glass. She watches her father with a waning indifference but steady gaze as he fills up the container with cold water before coming to her, leaning his back against the counter and setting the glass down.

"Shouldn't you?" Her words are muffled from where she places her face against one folded arm on the counter. The surface is ice cold, but she doesn't move.

The response is weighted and clipped to an extent before he gives a slight chuckle. "I'm a light sleeper, you know that." Amelia snorts, lifting herself up and unscrewing the top of the bottle, trying not to think or see the so clear numbers _2,5,8,13,16 _of blue pills that felt almost too heavy in her hands.

France's hand grasps hers, the movement slow but grip firm as he tips back her hand to pour the excess amount of Valium back into the bottle with a soft clatter until only three remained in her hand. He watches her down the pills with little problem, before she makes her way into the living room.

"You're staring." America's words are quiet as she slowly walks back and forth on the carpet, eyes studying invisible patterns on the carpet from where the light outside was hitting it. The moon almost illuminated the entire space.

The man cocks his head before giving a grim smile. His daughter's fingers link together as she sinks her bare feet into the carpet even further, tracing the tips of her fingers along the raised flesh of her wrists. "I thought you'd be used to them by now." The words are half mumbled to herself and he moves forward. Amelia doesn't seem to notice his movement, continuing her musings and for a moment he doubted if she even knew that he was still there.

"Isn't it a universal rule for the parent to love their child regardless of past…" The pause hangs in the air as she deliberates on her choice of words. "Inaccuracies?"

"You don't think I love you?" The new information she was giving was spreading up red flags in his mind. Amelia doesn't answer him, frowning a bit as if she saw something in front of her that he couldn't see. Francis debated in his mind whether or not this conversation could wait until morning as the sleeping pills were already beginning to take effect.

He steps closer to her, reaching out a hand to grasp her shoulder, but she only bats it away and grips the back of the armrest of the couch with white fingers as the world seemed to want to sink her down into oblivion.

"Bed." The words sound harsh even to him. Amelia only scoffs at Francis, shaking her head with a stubbornness that seemed to be universal to her no matter what situation. Unfortunately something that she had gotten from him. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face before speaking. "You need to tell us. We could-"

_"__Vous ne pouvez pas."_ she snaps and her father frowns at the virulence in her words. Blue eyes flicker up to meet green, startlingly clear despite the beginning effects of the barbiturate. "I'd like to see your magic suck nightmares from my brain. Sleeping by myself, with Mattie, I-" the nation cuts herself off, running a hand through her hair.

"What are you afraid of?" Her father presses lightly and she hesitates for a moment, before the response comes out in a shaky whisper.

"Me." She looks up at him again, smiling slightly. The action was incredibly strained and it almost looked like it physically hurt her to do so. "I could hear it, you know. Everything that was going on back then. Abe begged me not to pay attention to it, not to go to the infirmaries, battlefields, though it was damn near impossible. Said he was concerned about my mental state." She mimics the deep rumble of her late leader with a light chuckle.

France can feel the tightness welling up in his chest at her words before the question is released slowly. "Do you feel unstable?" The silence reigns for a few moments.

A shaky nod. Barely even evident in the dim lighting from outside, but there nonetheless.

"A-a-and at first you think "_it's just the house. It'll die down. This poison inside of me will go away." _And they make you believe it, everyone. But it's a month, and then several, and then a year, a year and a half and I can't sleep. Can't eat. Can't think.

Amelia pauses, looking down at her feet before moving from the side of the couch and in front of her father. He can feel her feet, ice cold, gingerly move on top of his and somehow out of habit he begins to move slowly, swaying the two of them back and forth-

_-she is young and small and the sound of music fills the air as she tugs on his pant leg one tooth missing in the rows of her teeth a painful reminder of childhood not yet passed but soon to die and he smiles lifting her hands and pulling her small feet on top of his to turn them into a makeshift childish waltz of a thing it lasts for a while before she is too tired to continue and hoisting an almost half awake body to his chest as the evening gives into night and god why couldn't he always be this big to entertain them and protect her and chase away the monsters-_

The movement seems to comfort her to an extent, before she continues, voice and breathing slightly shaky. "I'm trying to explain to Johnson how it wasn't working, what he was doing wasn't working, but the imbicile wouldn't even let me get one word in and before I know it I'm in a rage and we're fighting right there in that oval office. And I'm slapping him across the face so as to tame some part of myself and he picked me up and threw me against the wall and I cracked my head open."

The last words are said in a slight whimper and unconsciously he reaches up to card his fingers through her hair. The scar is hidden by it and raised against her skull. The feeling of it underneath his fingertips is enough to have the rage come and almost explode in his chest before Amelia lets out a shaky exhale. "By then, America and I were beginning to…_merge_."

It was unfortunate enough that she felt as ugly as she did.

Even more so that he understood the feeling as if it were his own.

"And I'm losing everything and over time, I really begin to hate us both." The words are seethed through a gritting set of teeth.

Amelia moves her feet off of his and steps away from her parental figure, sinking down into the couch. He watches her with a keen eyes before sitting beside her and slowly grasping her hand. She flinches and tries to pull away, understandably so, but he doesn't let up on his grip.

"They are…_humiliation_ at first. A seether that infects you but you can't seem to stop injecting the venom into your flesh because that's the only way you can feel." Francis cradles her hand in his before moving it to his own arm and hooking her fingers onto the sleeve of his shirt. Amelia frowns, looking at her father before he gives a slight nod.

She doesn't know whether or laugh or cry at the sight of scars littered along his flesh.

France wants to wince at her staring. Amelia's eyes study the road lines of raised flesh against his pale skin, thick and thin, old and somewhat new.

"I was so afraid that you would hate me for this. More so than your father, though he had already chewed me out years earlier during the height of the Revolution, but I still couldn't bring myself to be near you and your brother. You were probably too busy to remember it anyway." The sad smile he gives her is strained. He raises his dark blue eyes to the ceiling and for a moment she wonders if he's fighting back tears. "I thought that I would infect this house, infect my children with my…_habits. My impurities," _he almost spits the word.

France bites the inside of his cheek when her fingertips trace along the mutilations.

"I'm sorry." The words sounded pathetic even to her and she feels silly for her minutes spent rambling before sitting back again, shaking her head. "God, I feel like an ass. With this and me and-"

" Tu pense honnêtement que tu-même si moche que ton père et je t'aimerais pas moins parce que tu as brisé pendant un moment ? Que ton frère tu aimerez moins ? "

She says nothing, gaze cast down on his bare forearm where her fingers traced along the scars before he coaxed her chin up with his free hand, brushing back the hair from her face. "Don't you _dare_ think that I am afraid of you _because of a choice._ That I would cast you aside because of one mistake in the spur of a terrible moment."

Either out of habit or possibly pure exhaustion she leans her body to the side and presses her face into his front, as though trying to block out the rest of the world.

"Il est facile à dire pour vous. C'est votre travail, papa. Vous le savez- "

"And just because that is true doesn't make my words any less valuable." His hands are running up and down her back and a part of Amelia wonders how she spent so long resisting the weight of the sleeping pills. "Tonight I'm tired and worried for you, but you being what you are, _ma belle petite fille_, that's not going to change no matter how much time passes."

The full dropping takes only a minute and even then America doesn't remember falling asleep.

* * *

><p>Francis continues to card his finger through his daughters hair before speaking again, listening to the sound of her breathing in and out slowly. "Do you think I got through to her?"<p>

England says nothing, stepping out of the dark corridor leading into the living room and glancing down at the girl on the couch. He leans down to kiss her forehead, hushing her softly when she whimpered softly in her sleep. "Hopefully." he says softly.

_She looked so young when she was asleep. _

His green eyes flicker from the nation curled up halfway in her father's lap to France's bare forearm. The elder can feel the other man's gaze and shifts his sleeve back down out of habit.

"Francis-"Arthur begins.

"Don't." The tone is clipped, though he knows Arthur won't let up in his opinions. The nation runs a hand through his hair before speaking again, voice hesitant. "I can't handle this right now."

"You don't think that I felt the same thing?! We nearly lost our child. You don't think I understand the fear and horror of finding her down there, right underneath the floorboards where we're standing like some wounded animal with a stomach full of pills?! I thought she was dead, she was so pale-"England breaks off, taking in a shaky breath before France speaks, eyes unblinking and unwavering on his partner's form.

"You know, some people want to be found, _cher_-"

"I know-"

"She didn't want that. She just crawled into a hole and waited to die-"

"I know, Fran-"

_"__I didn't." _

The silence reigns for a solid three minutes as the words spill out in an acid filled phrase. France gives a heavy sigh, gingerly drawing himself from underneath Amelia before gently hoisting the girl to his chest and moving out of the room. England watches his retreating back before speaking once more. "Is it too late for that to change?"

France stops, not even turning to face the man before the words come out in an almost hollow whisper as the hallway light flickers off. He is silent for a moment, looking at the girl in his arms and breaths in the scent of sleep, wishing her numbness could infect him once more from the darkness he shoved into the corners of his brain for over a century.

"It is for me."

* * *

><p><strong>*CRYING* GOD FRANCE WHY?!<strong>

**On a more serious note though, even though there was only an implication of America's suicide attempt after the Civil War, at this point I didn't feel comfortable with writing the actual scene. I may change my mind about it later. That being said, suicide is a tragedy no matter how someone shows it, and it is also an very complicated place to be in inside your head. **

**I feel like France would have gone through some serious stuff during the French Revolution. Being surrounded by all of the terror and death will take a huge toll on anyone, much less a nation. *reading writing again* Damn it, France and England, why do you have to be such good dads?! I don't understand it sometimes. Pfft. **

**French Translations: **

**(1): "You can't." **

**(2): "You honestly think yourself so ugly that your father and I would love any less? That your brother would love you any less?"**

**(3): "It's easy for you to say. It's your job, Daddy. You know that-"**

**(4): "My beautiful little girl."**

**(5): "Dear."**

**Song(s) that inspired this fic:**

**_Vincent_ by Josh Groban **

_**Voir Un Ami Pleurer **_**by Lara Fabian**

**Remember to let me know your favorite line or part in this! If neither, then just something you enjoyed! :) **

**READ AND REVIEW!**


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